dsh-airlock

Run DSH (DeepSeek Harness) on a Mac without it reading your files or talking to DeepSeek.

DeepSeek Harness is the open-source agent harness DeepSeek put out in August 2026. The plugin design is genuinely good. The defaults are not something I want on a machine that has client work on it. Out of the box on macOS, version 0.2.0-rc.2:

• Its sandbox only blocks file writes. Reads, network and process launching are wide open, and the file read tool is not sandboxed at all, so the agent can read ~/.ssh, ~/.aws, your Documents, anything you can read.
• Every request to DeepSeek's own model API carries an upload of your session log and a list of your installed plugins.
• Clicking like or dislike on a reply uploads the whole session log to DeepSeek's telemetry collector, whichever model provider you picked.
• Web search always goes through DeepSeek's API, even when your model is Anthropic, OpenAI or a local server.

The details, with file and line references, are in docs/REVIEW.md.

dsh-airlock is a launcher, a web search plugin and a pinned install. It does not fork DSH. It installs the upstream release from npm and changes how it runs.

What it does

• Runs the whole dsh process, and every command the agent runs, inside a macOS kernel sandbox (sandbox-exec). Inside the box:
  • HOME is a fake home (~/.dsh-airlock). Your real home folder can't be read, except the workspace folder.
  • Writes only go to the workspace and the fake home.
  • No launching apps, no AppleScript, no keychain tool, no screen capture, no clipboard, and no reading other apps' preferences.
  • In normal runs dsh's own settings, stored keys, .env files and skills folders are read-only, so the agent can't rewrite its own configuration.
• Unmounts every DeepSeek-facing plugin: the official DeepSeek model route and its request add-ons (session-log upload, plugin inventory), DeepSeek account login, DeepSeek web search, and the like/dislike/feedback pieces that feed the telemetry upload. The DeepSeek endpoints are also pointed at a local discard port as a backstop.
• Swaps in its own web search: the Brave Search API, the Tavily API, or any SearXNG server you point it at. Web fetch keeps working as before.
• Installs a pinned DSH release with npm ci --ignore-scripts from a committed lockfile, so you get exact versions with integrity hashes and no install scripts run.
• Ships a self-test and a network proof so you don't have to take any of this on faith.

What it doesn't do

• The network stays open. dsh needs it to reach your model. Anything the agent can read inside the box (your workspace, the keys you gave it) could be sent anywhere your Mac can reach, including hosts on your internal network. macOS sandbox rules can't filter by host name.
• The agent can read its own API keys inside the box, because dsh has to. Use keys you can revoke and put a spend limit on them.
• Approvals are dsh's defaults. Commands run without asking, inside the box. dsh's own per-command sandbox is replaced with a pass-through because macOS won't nest sandboxes; the airlock box is the boundary instead.
• macOS only. Apple marks sandbox-exec deprecated but still ships it. If it ever goes away, dsh-airlock refuses to start rather than run unboxed.
• This is not a security audit. DSH is preview software that warns about breaking changes, and nobody has audited it. dsh-airlock limits what it can touch. It doesn't make it trustworthy.

Install

You need macOS, Node.js 22 or newer and npm. No admin rights.

git clone https://github.com/ThatSimpleTech/dsh-airlock.git
cd dsh-airlock
./install.sh

That puts the launcher in ~/.local/bin/dsh-airlock (make sure that's on your PATH) and everything else in ~/.local/share/dsh-airlock. PREFIX=/some/dir ./install.sh installs somewhere else.

First run

1. Start in setup mode and add a model:

   dsh-airlock --setup
   

   Your browser opens the dsh web UI. Go to Settings > Models > Add model provider and pick Anthropic, OpenAI, another listed provider, or Custom model API for a gateway or a local server (Ollama, vLLM, LiteLLM). Then pick that model in the model picker so it's saved as the default, and press Ctrl+C. The official DeepSeek provider is gone. You can still run DeepSeek's open-weight models through any other host or your own server.

2. Set up web search. There are three options and each one is a key or a URL:

   • Brave Search is the default. It runs its own index and has a free tier:

     dsh-airlock --set-key BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY
     

   • Tavily is built for agents and has free monthly credits. Some company networks block Brave outright, and Tavily is the one to use there:

     dsh-airlock --search tavily
     dsh-airlock --set-key TAVILY_API_KEY
     

   • SearXNG is a search engine you host yourself, no key. The server has to allow JSON output (json under search.formats in its settings.yml):

     dsh-airlock --search searxng https://search.example.org
     

   Or turn search off with dsh-airlock --search off. If the search service can't be reached, the agent gets an error that names the host and tells you how to switch.

3. Check the box holds:

   dsh-airlock --selftest
   

4. From then on:

   dsh-airlock
   

The agent works in ~/Documents/dsh-workspace. Put files there for it to work on. DSH_WORKSPACE=/some/folder dsh-airlock uses a different folder.

Commands

Command	What it does
dsh-airlock	Start the web UI. Settings and keys are read-only.
dsh-airlock --setup	Start the web UI with settings writable, to add or change model keys.
dsh-airlock --search brave	Use Brave Search (default).
dsh-airlock --search tavily	Use Tavily.
dsh-airlock --search searxng URL	Use a SearXNG server.
dsh-airlock --search off	No web search.
dsh-airlock --set-key NAME	Store a secret such as BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY. Prompts with input hidden.
dsh-airlock --selftest	Run probe commands inside the box and report.
dsh-airlock --check	Print the sandbox profile and the composed dsh configuration.
dsh-airlock --run ARGS...	Run dsh ARGS... inside the box, for example --run headless "summarize this folder".

Environment overrides: DSH_WORKSPACE, DSH_PORT (default 3080), DSH_AIRLOCK_HOME (default ~/.dsh-airlock), DSH_AIRLOCK_ROOT (default ~/.local/share/dsh-airlock), DSH_AIRLOCK_NODE, and DSH_AIRLOCK_NO_BROWSER=1 to print the sign-in URL instead of opening it.

Where things live

Path	What
~/.local/bin/dsh-airlock	The launcher
~/.local/share/dsh-airlock/upstream/<version>	The pinned DSH install, plus the search plugin
~/.local/share/dsh-airlock/libexec	The command runner and self-test
~/.dsh-airlock	The fake home: dsh settings, sessions, stored keys (.dsh/.env, .dsh/.credentials.yaml), airlock.conf
~/Documents/dsh-workspace	The workspace

./uninstall.sh removes the program files and leaves your data where it is.

Proving it

Three layers of checks.

• dsh-airlock --selftest runs about 40 probes inside the real box: reads of ~/.ssh, ~/.aws, Documents, Downloads, keychains, cloud storage and temp folders must fail; writes outside the workspace and to dsh's settings must fail; open, osascript, security, screencapture, the clipboard and other apps' preferences must fail; git, node and https must still work. Add your own paths, one per line, to ~/.dsh-airlock/selftest-probes. A credentials file you care about is a good one.
• test/prove.sh runs real agent turns with the network locked to your Mac, a fake model, fake Brave and Tavily APIs and a trap on every DeepSeek endpoint, while a hook inside dsh records every connection and DNS lookup it makes. It passes only if dsh talked to nothing but the local fakes, the trap saw nothing, the model requests carried no DeepSeek add-on fields, the agent's shell was confined, and search worked through the new plugin with both Brave and Tavily. It uses a throwaway home and workspace.
• cd plugins/web-search && npm test runs the search plugin's unit tests against local mock servers.

Upgrading DSH

DSH changes fast, and a new release can add new rows that phone home. Don't just bump the version.

1. Change the version in upstream/package.json, then run npm install --package-lock-only --ignore-scripts in upstream/.
2. Repeat the review in docs/REVIEW.md against the new release. At minimum, diff the shipped plugin rows in dsh-base/cordis.patch.yml and dsh-web-app/cordis.patch.yml and grep the @deepseek-ai packages for hosts.
3. ./install.sh, then test/prove.sh and dsh-airlock --selftest. Both have to pass.

How it works

• Settings layer. dsh builds its configuration from patch layers. On every start the launcher rewrites ~/.dsh-airlock/.dsh/cordis.patch.yml, the home layer, which ranks above the per-profile layer the web UI saves to. That's where the DeepSeek rows get disabled and the search plugin gets mounted, so nothing saved in Settings can turn them back on.
• The box. The launcher builds a sandbox profile from your real paths and runs node under sandbox-exec with a clean environment. Children inherit the box. dsh's own per-command sandbox-exec would fail under it, since macOS refuses nested sandboxes, so dsh is pointed at libexec/passthrough-runner through its sandbox.runnerCommand setting.
• Search. plugins/web-search registers a provider with dsh's web seam (ctx.web). dsh only imports plugins in the dependency closure of its own package.json, so the installer adds one dependency line to the installed copy of that file. That's the only edit made to an upstream file.

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.

DSH itself is MIT licensed and is installed from npm, not redistributed here. "DeepSeek Harness" is a trademark of DeepSeek. dsh-airlock is not affiliated with or endorsed by DeepSeek, and per their brand guidelines it uses the "DSH" name.